The Greatest Gift

I recently watched a documentary on Ayrton Senna. The day he died, he was praying, and said God spoke to him. God told him that 'today, he would receive the greatest gift, God himself'.

Apart from being fairly amazing that God spoke to him in that way, it throws things into perspective. Whatever you think would be really great gifts (experiences, possessions, security, relationships, family), by far the greatest of them all is knowing God himself. It's the one gift we should treasure and pursue more than any other.

The Expulsive Power of a New Affection

"The Puritan preacher Thomas Chaimers, in his sermon The Expulsive Power of a New Affection, said that desires for God and desires for sin cannot coexist in the human heart. They are two opposing "affections"—one will always push out the other. So, he said, "the only way to dispossess [the heart] of an old affection, is by the explosive power of a new one" (see Gal. 5:16-17). You can't just "stop it," because the it is always more than behavior. It is always rooted in your affections, in what you love—what you worship. Chalmers points the way forward: we worshiped our way into this mess, and by God's grace, we'll worship our way out."

Mike Wilkerson, Redemption, p38.
Thomas Chalmers, The Expulsive Power of a New Affection (PDF)

"But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do."

Galatians 5:16-17

Worship: Basic Human Wiring

"We reflect God's glory by our worship of him, which means to hold him as the object of our deepest desires and as worthy of our imitation. Worship is not just singing songs in church; it's how we live our lives every moment of every day–every thought, word, deed, feeling and desire. You worship what you live for, whatever is most worthy of your attention and devotion. It is what drives you at the core, and it flows from the essence of who you are.

You can't turn it off. It's your basic human wiring. To not worship is not to live. It's like a garden hose stuck on full blast. You can aim it at the grass, the car, or the shrubs, but you cannot stop its flow."

Mike Wilkerson, Redemption, p29